Archives for August 2016

Sometimes when we are really busy, it is hard to plan our next move, because there is always something there to distract us. Even if we try to plan, racking our brains under constant work pressure is rarely productive.

That is why the most important matter to plan is to schedule our time off and take it. That includes time during our day not in front of our screen or on the phone or hammering away at something.

I get my best ideas when I am not trying to think about business. I enjoy walking in the countryside, and while looking at butterflies, some bright idea can pop into my head quite spontaneously. Of course I always note it down straight away. Actually I carry a small dictaphone, but a mobile or cell phone or a notebook will do just fine.

Always be ready for an idea or a solution when not at work. I made an important decision only this morning while shaving. Ten seconds earlier I was thinking more about the foam than the email I decided to send, but that is how it works for me.

So do not think too hard, and thinking will be easier. Don’t pressurise yourself. Relax and let the ideas in.

Do you have a tax issue I can help you with? Get in touch and I will guide you.

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I had an email from an accountancy firm asking if I would give free tax advice in half-hour sessions over the telephone. I thought the guy must mean free to the client, but his firm would be paying my business.

It turned out he really did mean “free” and that I would be giving this free advice in the hope of picking up start-up businesses as clients as a result of their gratitude.

Things I have learned about free advice:

If you give it, you will never be asked for more advice for which you get paid.

Your insurance position is questionable if someone thinks they had the wrong advice.

Someone who wants it has no respect for all the experience, study and learning you have put in.

You could be being paid for the work you would be doing instead, rather than giving time away free.

Yes, I sometimes do give free advice, but that is on behalf of a registered charity. Never, never, never sell your work short, and never, never, never, never work for nothing except for a cause you hold dear.

Do you have a tax issue I can help you with? Get in touch and I will guide you.

A while back we had the builders in and they threw away some fixings which they should have kept and put back up. I went into a local shop to enquire if they could sell me any replacements. They went further than that and gave me the fixings, which were a type of bracket, entirely free of charge.

What nice people, we thought. A year later, we gave them some business; actually quite a lot. The guys were working in our house, being a father and son, so it is a good family business.

I made the tea, and the father started complaining partly to me and partly to his son about another customer, whom he thought was a nuisance. It sounded to me as though she just wanted everything to be right.

Then another customer telephoned the son and was apparently complaining about a failure to deliver and fit the product up to now. Our man this end was giving reasons why they had not yet delivered, while the father, in asides to me, was saying “that’s not true”, “that’s a lie” and so on.

I hope we do not have any trouble with what we have been sold, but even if the products are perfect I would be less likely to refer these people because of their attitude to other customers.

We all gripe about customers sometimes after a difficult day, but surely only in the comfort of our own homes, with no one eavesdropping who could cause us damage?

Loose lips sink ships.

Do you have a tax issue I can help you with? Get in touch and I will guide you.

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As customers we all appreciate good service. Yet technology makes our interaction with many businesses so impersonal.

Bank branches are closing all around us. Yes, internet banking is very convenient and enables us to swap money around and pay bills at any time of the day and night. However, try speaking to a bank call centre and the agent may be polite but will not know you. Next time you telephone you will speak to one of a thousand others. All that assumes you will not have to speak to a robot or speech recognition software as some banks require.

I always liked to be addressed by name and recognised in my local bank branch when we had one. It was the bank where everyone (or the staff anyway) knew my name, so it was as comforting as that famous fictional bar in Boston.

Call centres are the bane of our lives. Many of us hark back to a time we remember when we could deal directly with a person on a consistent basis. Of course nostalgia can make us remember things as better when they were, particularly when we get frustrated by speaking to an anonymous agent. Those memories of supposedly better times can work to our advantage in our small businesses.

What our customers or clients still do remember is that quality personal service. They like a “go-to” person to whom they can always speak and with whom they can always deal. Depending on the size of your business, that will not always be you, the business owner, but if not, then make sure that every customer has a name as a point of contact in your office, who is a trusted employee. Give that employee the specific responsibility of managing each of their allocated customers. Not only will your customers really appreciate being able to speak to a person they know each time they need to, but the responsibility will help give your workers empowerment and satisfaction too.

The customers will recommend our services, and will stick with us for the long term. That is what we want, isn’t it?

Do you have a tax issue I can help you with? Get in touch and I will guide you.